Page 3022 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 August 2008
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certainly did not ever see a social impact analysis. We do not even know what criteria the functional review applied to its topic. What were the terms of reference? We were not even allowed to see those. Was there a situational or a needs analysis? Who was consulted? We do know that the environment was perhaps one of the areas most crippled by this review, apart from education and SAP.
For a while there, remember, we had no designated environment minister. The environment department became part of TAMS. Then, of course, it was much harder to track the cuts to it. We saw cuts to the Office of Sustainability and we saw its fracturing between operations and policy. We still have not ever seen an evaluation to indicate whether that was a good or a bad thing for sustainability.
We also saw the disbandment of the Sustainability Expert Reference Group, which had been giving advice to the Chief Minister. I am not sure that it cost very much. Perhaps the Chief Minister did not like the advice and perhaps it was serendipitous that it was cut about the same time as the functional review came out. We also saw cuts to lots and lots of advisory bodies and bodies that provide a conduit between the government and the community. Perhaps the government’s concern about community consultation—a late concern, admittedly—stems a lot from the functional review too. Maybe with the functional review there were cuts to the government’s own credibility on community consultation.
We also saw enormous cuts to ACTION that I do not believe it has recovered from since. Even though we have a new network that has solved some of the problems, I do not believe most of my constituents believe that ACTION has reached the standard that it was at before the functional review cut it. One of the worst aspects of the functional review was really the loss of the community advisory group and also again sticking ACTION back into a department. We have not seen any evaluation of whether or not that was good for ACTION.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I do not believe that the budget really should have been passed without this most important explanatory document. Every year we get a whole heap of documents with the budget. In 2006 we should have had a copy of the functional review. Remember, too, that the estimates committee of that year would have actually supported not passing the budget. Remember, too, that there were some pretty shonky goings on in that estimates committee. Ms MacDonald was overseas and came back quite precipitately in order to bolster her Labor members.
This government get very insecure when they do not have a majority on committees, and we have seen that in relation to the estimates committee and we have seen that in relation to even the select committee on water that I moved to get set up. The government would not allow that. They referred it to the planning and environment committee and then they dropped the inquiry. Water is just too sensitive an issue for this government and so it seems is finance. The public accounts committee is not a committee that is constituted according to the government’s preferences either. The public accounts committee has a member from its party, the Liberal Party and from the crossbench. Therefore, it is a non-partisan committee. It truly is a committee that is concerned with the best financial management for this Assembly.
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